Re: Regarding NETRW and the buffer list

On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 07:25:36PM -0700, Ken L wrote:
> On Friday, October 19, 2012 6:27:26 PM UTC-7, Tony Mechelynck wrote:
> > On 20/10/12 02:13, Ken L wrote:
> >
> > > Hello everyone,
> > >
> > > I'm a Vim new user, so please forgive my ignorance, but when using NETRW, is it possible to prevent it from displaying filepaths in the buffer list (:ls)? My list quickly becomes cluttered with these path names, and I'd rather have it display currently open buffers only.
> > >
> > > Thank you,
> > >
> > > Ken
> >
> > There are two commands for this kind of job: :bdelete and :bwipeout
> > (which can be abbreviated by removing any number of characters from the
> >
> > end, except the first two after the colon).
> >
> > :bdelete keeps the buffer name in memory, but :ls won't show it unless
> > you use :ls! with exclamation.
> >
> > :bwipeout really forgets everything that Vim knew about the buffer.
> > Including what you would have liked to remember later!
> >
> > In no case, however, are buffer numbers reallocated: if you use :bd or
> > :bw, the corresponding buffer number will be "missing" from the output
> > of :ls until you quit Vim.
> >
> > See:
> > :help :bd
> > :help :bw
> > :help :ls
> >
> > The purpose of :ls displaying even buffers not currently shown in a
> > window is because you may have something important to do about them. For
> > instance, starting Vim as
> >
> > vim file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt
> >
> > will start Vim will three files, but only one of them will be displayed
> > in a window. The other two are available though, and :next will cycle
> > through them (except that you will have to save a modified file first,
> > or confirm its discard).
> >
> > All those buffers are "open" in a sense, even those that aren't
> > displayed in a window at the moment. Here is perhaps the place for a
> > little boilerplate about Vim terminology:
> >
> > Vim has one or more buffers. Each buffer usually represents one file,
> > but it may be a file which doesn't yet exist on disk, or even a file
> > which will never be written to disk. A buffer can also be empty. It can
> > even be a placeholder for some data which will be fetched from disk
> > (from a known disk path) the next time you want it displayed in a window.
> >
> > Each buffer is displayed in zero or more windows. A window is a kind of
> > viewport on a buffer; depending on the respective sizes of both, the
> > window may contain all or part of the buffer, or even (for a small
> > buffer) all the buffer with some empty space left over at the bottom.
> > Editing a file normally consists of making changes to the buffer
> > displayed in the current window; these changes may then be written to
> > disk � or discarded.
> >
> > Vim has one or more tab pages; one and only one of them is visible at
> > any time; if there are others, they usually have tab labels near the top
> > of the Vim screen (in gvim, below the menu and toolbar). Each tab page
> > contains one or more windows. If there are several windows in a single
> > tab page, they may be split vertically, horizontally, or in any combination.
> >
> > What is called "a window" in Vim language is not the same as what your
> > OS calls "a window". Every running instance of Vim handles one and only
> > one "OS window" but there may be any number of "Vim (split) windows" in
> > it (well, no fewer than one, and the upper limit depends on the
> > available memory on your computer). (An exception to this may be MacVim:
> > on the Mac, I think I've heard about the possibility of having a single
> > running instance of MacVim handle several "windows" in the OS sense, but
> > I'm not sure of the details � or maybe I misunderstood: I'm on Linux.)
> >
> > See
> >
> > :help windows.txt
> >
> > :help tabpage.txt
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > Tony.

> Hey Tony,

> Thanks for the in-depth response! I appreciate it very much.

> Yes, I have familiarized myself with the differences between buffers (including hidden), tabs, and windows, and use them quite frequently (well, only hidden buffers and split windows, since I prefer not to use tabs). I've also mapped :bnext and :bprev to tab/shift-tab in normal mode to make cycling through buffers very quick and easy.

> Anyway, here's what I do: I almost always use the CtrlP plugin to quickly find my files (I've mapped my most-used directories to it). But I also use NETRW to manually navigate to files located elsewhere. I use :Vexplore! to open up a righthand side vsplit, find my file, and then open it to replace the NETRW window (netrw_browse_split=0). But once I've opened my file, I'd like the filepath to disappear from the buffer list. As I mentioned before, I like to :bprev/:bnext through buffers, but continually coming across leftover directory trees from NETRW is interfering with my rhythm (I always have to stop what I'm doing to type :bd to make them vanish).

> Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but is constantly using :bd/:bw to remove filepaths "normal" procedure when using NETRW? I feel like I'm missing a critical piece of information in understanding how it works.

> Cheers,

> Ken

I'm not sure how exactly you are opening files displayed in netrw,
because when I open files by navigating the cursor to them (usually
with the 'j' command) and pressing <Enter>, the netrw buffer
disappears from my buffer list, and bnext bprev do not come across
them.

BTW I like your <Tab> mapping -- that's going to save my <F6> and
<S-F6> for something else -- thanx!

sc

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